And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Use of Indian Mascots Brings Justice
Dept. to N.C. Town
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/17/143l-021799-idx.html
By Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 17, 1999; Page A03
ASHEVILLE, N.C.—Rayne Merzlak never dwelt much on
his Lakota Sioux heritage, being a teenager with other things
on his mind, until one day at a pep rally for the Erwin High
School Warriors and Squaws. As a whooping mascot in a
feathered headdress ran out onto the floor, other students
chanted about their intentions for the opposing team: "Let's
scalp 'em!"
And, as if he were seeing the scene for the first time, Merzlak
said, he felt deeply offended. "They thought it was a joke,"
said the 1998 graduate, now 18. "But I didn't think it was a
joke."
After two years of intense debate in this North Carolina
mountain town about whether Erwin High's mascot and team
names should be changed, the federal government has decided
to enter the fray. The Justice Department has launched its first
investigation into whether these symbols violate the civil
rights
of Native American students--to the chagrin of some, who
resent what they call interference in a local matter, and to the
delight of others, who say Indians have been belittled for far
too long.
The issue resonates around the country, from the Los Angeles
School District, where board of education officials decided in
1997 to remove all Indian-themed mascots, to the nation's
capital, where Native American groups urge the Washington
Redskins pro football team to adopt another name. It touches
deep wells of resentment among Native Americans, who see
themselves as about the last ethnic group others feel free to
mock with impunity, and it raises questions about how much
harm such stereotyping does to the youth involved.
"I don't think any racist images should be used as mascots,
but if they agree to spread the honor--when we have the
Washington Blackskins or the San Francisco Chinks or the
Los Angeles Chicanos--I'll shut my mouth," said Rayne's
mother, Pat Merzlak, a nurse who wrote the Justice
Department requesting the investigation. "Nobody would
consider anything like that, but it's okay to treat Indian
culture
as something other than human."
To others, however, the controversy seems a case of
hypersensitivity in an age when political correctness has gone
to extremes. They contend the issue is too trivial to warrant
weighty discussion, much less intervention by the federal
government. And, they say, there is no need to tamper with
harmless sports traditions that were only meant to honor the
Indian spirit.
Whatever the view, the debate has gained tremendous
momentum nationwide. Native American groups estimate that
more than 600 schools, including Stanford University and
Miami University of Ohio, have gotten rid of Indian mascots
and names. But more than 2,500 other schools around the
country still employ those images.
The University of North Dakota is fighting a resolution in the
state legislature that would urge the school to drop the name
"The Fighting Sioux." Last fall, a United Methodist
Commission on Race urged the denomination to move its
general conference out of Cleveland in 2000 in protest of
Chief Wahoo, the grinning, befeathered symbol of baseball's
Cleveland Indians. And Dallas public schools, following the
lead of Los Angeles, moved last year to ban the American
Indian mascots used at nine of its schools--at a cost of about
$40,000 to cover the changes in uniforms and school emblems
on gym floors and walls.
"When the American Indian community came to us and
lodged a complaint, we determined the mascots violated our
diversity-anti-harassment policy," said Clarence Glover,
Dallas's special assistant to the general superintendent for
intercultural relations. "I think people had gone along with
these mascots for so long, it was a matter of timing, when the
American Indians came to the table, like the African
Americans and Asians and Hispanics before them."
Professional sports teams--the Atlanta Braves, the Kansas
City Chiefs, the Chicago Blackhawks, and of course, the
Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins--also have come
under attack. But they are in a different league from public
schools and state-supported colleges, which depend on public
funds. Nonetheless, Native American groups hammer away,
staging small protests outside the stadium, for instance, when
the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians faced off in the
1995 World Series.
Last May, a Native American group urged a federal agency to
cancel the trademark protection of the Redskins, which could
forfeit the club's exclusive rights to use the Redskins name on
T-shirts and caps. No decision has been rendered, said
Redskins spokesman Mike McCall.
Here, outside Erwin High School, a 30-foot-tall Indian figure
greets visitors with a "How" gesture, a tomahawk clutched in
the other hand. Supporters see it fondly as an abiding school
symbol; others, like Monroe Gilmour of the Western North
Carolina Citizens for an End to Institutional Bigotry, see it
as a
"lawn jockey." A big sign declares Erwin to be the "Home of
the Warriors and Squaws."
Erwin is the most diverse school in largely white Buncombe
County, said Principal Malcolm Brown. Of its 1,100 students,
he said, about 10 percent are African American, 2 to 3 percent
are Hispanic, and fewer than 1 percent are Native American.
The school also reflects the area's unusually large Ukrainian
community, he said, with Ukrainian students accounting for
about 3 percent of the school's enrollment.
Initially, Brown said, the dispute here focused on the word
"squaw" to describe the female athletes. Although many view
the term as innocuous, Native Americans consider it
pejorative, derived from an Algonquin word describing female
genitalia, said David Rider, a psychologist who teaches at New
Orleans' Xavier University and has spoken often against the
abuse of Indian symbols. Indeed, a movement also is afoot to
expunge the word from place names such as the Squaw Creek
Wildlife Refuge in Missouri.
Principal Brown said he can understand the objection.
"From the onset, I have said publicly numerous times, I felt
the 'Squaws' should be changed, after learning things I did not
know. . . . I have a wife and daughter, and it would not please
me to hear them called that," he said.
What Brown and many others here object to, however, is the
Department of Justice's query about whether the school has
created "a racially hostile environment," as stated in the Jan.
22 letter the agency sent to Buncombe County school
superintendent Bob Bowers. Although the U.S. Department of
Education has investigated similar cases before, this is the
first
time the Justice Department has taken on the issue, said
Justice spokeswoman Christine DiBartolo.
The agency's letter also requests answers to 14 questions,
including a detailed history of the mascots, a copy of district
policy on racial discrimination, and an explanation of how the
mascot is portrayed on school stationery.
The Justice Department's interest in the case raises the stakes
considerably. A fight to keep Erwin's Indian theme could
jeopardize the $8 million in federal funding the school district
receives each year and could cost as much as $500,000 in
legal fees, said Buncombe County school board chairman
Wendell Begley.
"That's the money issue, but there's also an emotional issue,"
he said.
Judging from the speakers at recent hearings staged by the
school board, and from callers to local radio talk shows, it
seems that many people here are more determined than ever
to keep the mascots, inflamed by the federal government's
inquiry. But the final decision lies with the board, which will
take up the case at its March 4 meeting.
"My listeners are conservatives," said Matt Collins, who hosts
"The Matt Collins Show" each morning on WTZY-AM in
Asheville, "and they think the federal government getting
involved in what is a minor issue is a waste of time and
money. They're using our taxpayer money to fight us. It has
raised the passions of people."
Rayne Merzlak is not sorry about that. Now working as an
electrician and attending technical college, he said the
controversy has awakened in him an awareness of what it
really means to be an ethnic minority.
"They're saying, 'We don't want to change it. Leave us alone.
If the Indians have a problem, they can leave. There's one of
you and hundreds of us,' " said Merzlak, who has two
younger sisters who will someday attend the high school. "I
think it just goes to show how ignorant people can be."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
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